[295] This case was before the Supreme Court in December, 1801, and, ordinarily, would have been decided at the next term, June, 1802.
[296] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 1228-29.
[297] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 1229.
[299] _Annals_, 7th Cong. 1st Sess. 1235-36.
[300] _Ib._ 1236. See also Channing, _U.S._ IV, 280-81.
[302] Ames to Gore, Dec. 13, 1802, Ames, I, 310.
[303] _Ib._ Here is another characteristic passage from Ames, who accurately expressed New England Federalist sentiment: "The second French and first American Revolution is now commencing.... The extinction of Federalism would be followed by the ruin of the wise, rich, and good." (Ames to Smith, Dec. 14, 1802, _ib._ 313-16.)
[304] Pickering to Peters, Dec. 24, 1803, _New-England Federalism_: Adams, 338.
[305] Cabot to King, March 27, 1802, King, IV, 94.
[306] _Columbian Centinel_, April 7, 1802.
[307] "Bowling" in the _Independent Chronicle_ of April 26, 1802. An example of Jefferson's amazing skill in directing public opinion is found in the fact that the people were made to feel that the President was following in Washington's footsteps.
To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. (Jefferson.)
The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty. (Marshall.)
To have inscribed this vast truth of conservatism upon the public mind, so that no demagogue not in the last stages of intoxication denies it--this is an achievement of statesmanship which a thousand years may not exhaust or reveal all that is good. (Rufus Choate.)
"You will laugh at my vexation when you hear the various calamaties that have befallen me. In the first place when I came to review my funds, I had the mortification to discover that I had lost 15 silver dollars out of my waist coat pocket. They had worn through the various mendings the pocket had sustained & sought their liberty in the sands of Carolina.